Day 8: Morning

[wizardseason]

Morning: 6:00am - 12:00noon

[ IRL Timeframe: February 10th, 2020 - February 19th 26th, 2020 ]

After the events of Day 7 and the chaos that it brought, the heroes have learned a number of things that most of them still aren't sure they're ready to know. What will they do with their knowledge? How will they share it with each other? How will--

At about 6AM, everyone receives a text from Garrot. Anyone who saw him the evening before may be surprised to see him forming complete sentences and, uh, threatening everyone? Is he okay? Anyone brave enough to want to text him back?

What a great start to the day, an early text. But that's... surprisingly the only shake-up? It's eerily calm.

The Protector had been knocked out to sea by the Wizard, spawning a number of serious worried conversations on social media. Is he okay? Was he dead? Is it time to panic? There were plenty of memes, too. Like the wizard in the foreground with sunglasses, a golf club, and a wide smile with the protector in the background and the words "time to go golfing" memed accross the image. At least some people were still in a joking mood.

The Wizard, too, had a collection of social media posts about her current circumstances. The overall opinion was that she was way scarier than before, was she a terminator? Wizardinator?

To make matters worse, Sxicq was missing. The hashtag #childlookout was trending with almost hourly updates of the island. Sxicq didn't make themselves difficult to find, which meant that spotting them even from distant photos or drone snaps was pretty straightforward. But there was no sign of their characteristic glow or disruptions anywhere. No bigfoot-esque sightings in the back of other photos. No panic that they were eating entire restaurants' stocks of food.

Nothing.

Talk about a calm before the storm, especially since Eight had alluded to several of the heroes that there was still going to be a fight today.

It turns out to be another opportunity for the heroes to collect themselves, gather information, and get themselves on stable ground. It's warmer today, and there are passing waves of light rain all over the island. Little drizzle showers that stick around just long enough to make you seek shelter, but not so long that you wonder when it'll let up. The sun dares to peek through every now and then, occasionally at the same time as the drizzling rain.

Eighth Morning Event: None.

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The Weather

• Light rain.
• 68°F / 20°C
• A gentle breeze.

---

Prompts:

• 6:00am The Text, All Cities: "Mandatory medical exams today at 8AM at Far Haven General. The front desk will see you're escorted. You will be frisked, multiple times. Hospital staff says no weapons, no chaos. We can't piss them off.
  
  That means nobody gets their animal companions, since some of you are idiots. They'll be left at the front door before going off on a guided tour. If you or yours don't cooperate, it will be assumed that you want to harm the Princess and you will die.
  
  See you then!"
  
  At about 6AM, everyone receives that text from Garrot. Anyone who saw him the evening before may be surprised to see him forming complete sentences and, uh, threatening everyone? Is he okay? Anyone brave enough to want to text him back?


• 8:08am Eight, All Cities: Anyone who decides they're going to text Eight to make a plan will find that he doesn't answer any of his texts until 8:08am. He replies to everyone all at once, at exactly 8:08 and 8 seconds. Whether your hero sent one text at 6am, or eight texts between 6 and 8am, all the answers come at exactly the same time. If anyone asks to go to the garden, they'll be deposited on the landing pad in the garden... at 8:08am. Predictable.


• 9:00am The Wizard, The Garden: The Wizard can be found in the vegetable section of the garden for any heroes who go looking for her. She's tending to the plants, picking weeds, watering the beds, and preparing new sprouts to grow in the empty spaces.


• ?:00am Anywhere, All Cities: Surely your character has to be getting up to something this morning, somewhere. This is a general catchall post for any threads among heroes that occurs. Whatever your character is getting up to, however they're preparing, or however they're coping. This is the place for it. Eight said there was going to be a fight this afternoon, after all, so there's something on the horizon at least!

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Procedure:

Reply to the appropriate toplevel comments for events below. Indicate if a post is a private conversation with "Private" in the subject otherwise all threads should be open to interaction with others. Plan OOCly how you'd like to toss everyone around.

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Activity Check: February 2020

[ IRL Timeframe: February 1st - February 29th, 2020 ]

Comments

[daddykong]

Were they not so troubled, Garrot would be inclined to bask in the silence together. Alas, he and the Princess have far too many dark and twisted emotions. He waits a few moments in silence after Luka finishes, trying to temper his emotions.

"I wonder if he's aware that Sxicq's a real, talking, person." The child is the biggest unknown in this two-on-one disaster. And it prompts an ornery little grumble from big, exasperated Garrot. "This is all about them anyway, fuck the Wizard." There's a little sigh, and he just keeps going.

"He probably knows, it's been forty years." Garrot sighs, slumping his shoulders a bit. "...Do you think he even cares?" And now, all of a sudden, he's so very sad.

[eutychia]

"I don't know if he knows." Luka says solemnly. "Ten didn't even know - not until this year."

"I don't think he would care though, not at all." He shakes his head, his fingers tightening in the sand. "He didn't care about the Knights and Princesses that he'd let die in the past being real people. I don't know if something as simple as empathy would be able to convince him."

[daddykong]

Garrot's interest is piqued at Ten not knowing something so important. He seemed like the sort to know a lot of things! So then it's a matter of whether that information was withheld, and why. Questions for later and someone else entirely.

"Yeah, you're right." The words come out in a bit of a snarl, and he just sighs, trying to relieve tension and keep his cool. "He didn't just kill my father, you know." Another sigh, and his body starts to relax into the sand more, his legs stretching out further into the sand in front of him.

"The Protector's the reason I'm a father at all." Garrot whines a bit at that, like a kicked puppy. He needs to be very clear about this, but the strain and the way his voice begins to crack, well... "He broke their families, he orphaned them. Him and Seven."

And then there's just a long, shuddering sigh. Acknowledging it is hard enough, Garrot can't even try and process it. That's why he's so damn angry.

[eutychia]

"I know." Luka sighs, a fraction of Garrot's anguish reflected in his voice. "How many lives has this whole affair ruined?"

He doesn't expect an answer, but he lets the rhetorical question linger in the air for a moment.

"That's why we have to end it this year, so no more children have to lose their parents. Whatever it takes, if we can actually end this cycle it would be the best thing we could do for the future. That's why we can't just throw Sxicq back in their cage. It won't end."

[daddykong]

That's one hell of a question, Luka! Sure, you didn't expect an answer, but Garrot's done plenty of deep thinking about it, just... for a different outsider. So he just sits silently, letting the Princess's declarations wash over him. He waits a few moments, trying to shape his thoughts and emotions into anything other than impotent, violent rage.

"To answer your question, anyone who's been alive on this planet for the last forty years has had their life ruined." There's a short, curt sigh because Garrot sure has found some resolve, and it's fierce. "If you remember your history classes, our planet had a thing for wars." The statement is harsh, but not condescending; he actually remembers life before the Wizard and Protector.

"Now instead of bombs, we're scared of talking animals out of cartoons, and schoolkids learn to swing swords." You know that back in my day kind of crotchety old man tone? Yeah, combine that with restrained, molten rage. "Now we're fighting their war. His war." There's a short, forceful breath from his nose, a conscious release of pressure.

"This cycle isn't about our planet, our people. It never was." Garrot scoffs, and then exhales loud and deep, venting all the warmth and fire from his body. His entire demeanor shifts towards absolute zero, a chilled and measured departure from the explosions he'd been riding until now. "Or he'd be building ships to save us all if he lost."

[eutychia]

"Maybe it was, at some point." Luka comments, trying to muster any positivity that he can in the moment. "Something happened. I don't know what or when, but I don't think they came here with bad intentions. The Protector... lost sight of things along the way."

He sighs, reflecting on the mess and ruin that this one person wrought by simply losing his way. All the deaths in the name of his ego, or his pettiness, whichever made him this way.

"But that might mean he can be brought back around, right?" He says, his tone lifting hopefully as he turns to Garrot. Oh Luka, if only you knew what was in store for you all. "Maybe there's still time to build those ships."

[daddykong]

"Maybe?" Garrot sighs, forceful and harsh at Luka's optimism. Clearly he disagrees. "Gyre said it'll take about a year for the planet to die after Sxicq leaves." He's matter-of-fact, aggressively blunt about it. The doctor wants to be optimistic, but it's hard looking at forty years of missed opportunities.

"Unless government black-sites across the world have been hiding decades of work..." Garrot's voice has turned stern, uncompromising, lecturing. He is a brilliant mind when he wants to be. "...Our greatest minds would have to decipher space travel and then mass produce it. That means gathering supplies, making what we don't have, and preparing an entire world to uproot their lives." There's another gruff little scoff, though it's clear he's not aiming any of this at Luka.

"And what if we need some chemical compound that's rare or that we can't recreate in that time?" But he sighs, staring down at the sand. Being the buzzkill sucks, but... "Even if we can convince him, it might be too late for him to help."

Damn, dude.

[eutychia]

"Yeah..." Luka blinks. He has nothing to offer in the way of the logistics of constructing ships suited for traveling through space, but he knows Garrot's correct. They didn't have that tech or the resources to pull it off in a year's time.

"The Wizard mentioned she was making some kind of... realm, or something, right?" He proposes, recalling a tidbit she'd told him awhile ago. "She said it was a duplicate of this island. It's nowhere near planet capacity, but it might be possible to have some people live there for awhile if it comes down to it."

[daddykong]

As luck would have it, Garrot already asked the Wizard about her separate little world. So the idea gets a melancholy sigh from the doctor.

"She told me it's on the island somewhere, and that she took the Protector there when they fought." A moment of silence for the haven that could have been. "So that idea's dead in the water."

Perfect choice of words as they sit on the beach, really.

[eutychia]

"What!" Luka shouts loud enough to turn some heads of passersby. "Why would she do that?!"

Creating a pocket dimension as big as Harsen Island couldn't have been an easy task for the Wizard, as powerful as she seemed to be. She had told Luka specifically that she intended to hold people there, and Luka struggles to think of a reason she'd have used her creation as a battleground with the Protector instead.

"So did they destroy it or something?" He frowns. "Undoing all her hard work?"

[daddykong]

There's a sharp inhale with Luka's exclamation, enough for him to lean slightly away from Luka. Big ol' monster ears, pal. That said, he does manage to restrain the urge to shove a hand over Luka's mouth and push him into the sand so he stops attracting attention as they discuss details of cosmic importance.

"I don't know why she did it, and I don't care." He's gruff and stern now, self-aware enough to know he doesn't like dissecting the motivations of someone he's hated for most of his life. "It's done, and if it's not permanent, nothing's changing for now." There were plants, there was a body of water, a home. Those things take time to cultivate and build, far more time than they could spend in the next week or so. And thus the Monkey Knight sighs, leveling a critical gaze at his friend.

"How far does that set your plans back?" Luka wouldn't have shouted if there wasn't something riding on that place.